


Back from the Dead

by Afterstory (poetic_devices)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur worrying as usual, Gen, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 02:50:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7341595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetic_devices/pseuds/Afterstory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tossed into a ditch, beaten and bloodied, Merlin doesn't look like he's got a chance in hell of getting back to Camelot.</p><p>Oh, how wrong the Saxons were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back from the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> This little one-shot was based off of a truly stunning fanart by tumblr user deheerkonijn (not sure if they've got an ao3 account). Their art piece was inspired by the song the "World Ender" by Lord Huron, so I gave it a listen before writing this out. Enjoy!

“Oi! Get ‘im!”

_Scrrape!_

Rrrr _rrr **iiip**!_

 _“_ No _, wait–!”  
_

Too late.

 

They tossed him face-first into the quarry, but he barely felt the impact. At first.

He already hurt plenty from the cuts, scrapes, and the choice broken rib or two. Nevermind the split lip and generous gash painting one side of his face in a warrior badge of red. 

Merlin didn’t feel much like a warrior. He felt alone, and he felt helpless.

Someone laughed from up above, but he couldn’t look up even if he wanted to. He thought that maybe his shoulder had been dislocated on impact. 

Five seconds later, the Sidhe staff he’d brought with him was tossed down by his side.

“Ye’ll be needin’ that if you ever want to walk again” a voice, harsh and throaty, laughed down at Merlin, who could do little more than glare at the flat edge of a rock staring him in the face as he lay almost motionless. 

“Not that he’ll be doing much of anything once the crows come to peck out his dead eyes,” another voice followed. Merlin felt sick.

Those Saxons had come out of _no_ where. It wasn’t as though Merlin could have used magic, not when he had no idea he would have to _use_ it, and boy had he been in for a surprise. 

As usual, Merlin had been walking right into danger - more to the point, he had been taking a hike through the Valley of the Fallen Kings to retrieve the phoenix eye bracelet - a “gift” from Morgana - which had been discarded by king Arthur more than two years ago. Merlin’s job was to find the bracelet and return it safely- and secretly - to the ancient vaults of Camelot, where no one could use it for evil again.

Now, he was facedown in a rock quarry at the edge of the Valley, with one arm bent at an unhealthy angle next to his head, and muddied trousers that were more than a little ripped up at the knees. His jacket hadn’t been spared, either, as that was also soiled with dirt and stained in something dark - ah, more blood. He’d been cut there, too.

Apparently, the band of Saxons (and surely there were more of them) assumed that Merlin would die there, unable to stop them from taking Camelot from the bottom of a quarry. 

He hadn’t been quick enough to show them what he _could_ do, if he so pleased. If Camelot was in trouble – if _Arthur_ was in trouble, well…

 

They would soon find out.

**::::::{}::::::**

 

The king was sitting at council when the news of the Saxon invaders reached his ears.

Without sparing a moment, Arthur rallied his best men and sounded off the orders to be prepared to head deep into the forest, before the warrior bands could make their way into the city walls.

“And someone find Merlin, for the love of god!” Arthur snapped to the knight nearest him, who happened to be Leon.

“He’s… he’s not here, sire.”

Arthur turned on his heel, thoughts distracted from the impending band of warriors riding their way, at the sound of some far less welcome news. “What do you mean, he’s not _here?”_

The timing was hardly convenient. Clearly at odds with being the one to deliver the news, Leon swallowed, steeled himself, and said in the most level voice he could muster, “Merlin hasn’t been seen all day. Sire.”

Arthur frowned. “So he’s in the tavern, then. I should’ve guessed. Well then, I’ll just have someone fetch the incompetent–”

“No, sire. Gwaine already checked,” Arthur fought not to roll his eyes. “He’s not in the tavern. Gaius was also asked. Merlin’s not seen him since yesterday, my lord. No one knows what’s happened to him. I was going to tell you but, the Saxons…” it was a pitiful excuse, but Leon held his ground.

Arthur stared. It wasn’t often that Merlin went _missing_ missing, but it did happen. And he always turned up after a spell, if at times a little worse for wear. He couldn’t quite quell the churning in his gut that something was wrong, this time.

“As soon, as we have the Saxons well in hand, a search party is to be sent out for him” he said, forcing himself into a calm, even monotone.

“Sire” Leon bowed quickly and turned to follow the rest of the knights out of the citadel, where they would ride out of the city walls, into the Forest of Essetir.

**::::::{}:::::::**

The sun was just setting over the edge of the forest when the Knights of Camelot came face to face with the enemy. They’d cut through the east side of the forest, and all of them were positioned along a wide dirt path, with trees and hills rolling by on one side, the jagged face of a cliff rising high above them on the other.

It was quite the face-off, with a staggered line of twenty knights in Pendragon red and gold on one side, a band of twenty or thirty men in varying degrees of armour and leather facing them. Both sides were armed and very, very dangerous.

“You are crossing into territory that is not your own” Arthur projected to the rest of the Saxon men. “Turn around now, and no harm will come to you, I promise you that.”

A surly man with a combed beard sitting on horseback at the front line, clearly the leader, sneered back at Arthur.

“We made it this far, little prince” taunted the Saxon. A cheer rose up behind him. He held up a hand for silence. “I am Kilingur,” he proclaimed, as if the name should mean something, “and my men are the strongest fighters in the seven kingdoms. What makes you think you can take us all? You’re barely twenty. We are thirty-six strong. We _outnumber_ you.”

Arthur’s nostrils flared, but he remained firm and withstanding on his own horse. His hand twitched, however, aching to draw his sword. If he could settle this with words instead of blood, he would.

Appearing to read Arthur’s thoughts, Kilingur said, “I already killed one man today. I have no qualms about shedding more blood.”

There was a murmur amongst the knights. Arthur had a sick feeling.

“Killing a citizen of Camelot would be considered an act of war against the kingdom” Arthur grit out through his teeth, but he kept his voice even. “Do you speak the truth?”

Even so, the Saxon leered, too happy to hold the information over the king’s head. “What, you would go to war over a dirty, scrawny peasant man? A weakling king!” scoffed Kilingur. The warriors on either side of him laughed. 

There was an immediate chill in Arthur’s bones. “Not…” he murmured to himself. It couldn’t be. 

Apparently, the knights all had the same thought at once. The tension became heavier within their ranks. Leon’s brow was creased, Elyan’s jaw was set tight, Percival looked from side to side as if the other knights knew the answer to what they were all silently wondering. Gwaine wasn’t as careful about hiding his concern. Arthur, on the other hand, seemed to be putting on a brave face.

“What peasant man was this?” One of the knights - Sir Galahad, it sounded like - had struck up the nerve to ask the question. “Careful now, surely you do not mean the king’s very own manservant? The king could have you hanged for such a crime.”

At first, none of the Saxons said anything.

Kilingur, of course, was the first to burst out in a fresh peal of ugly laughter. “You mean the skinny one with the scarf and poor manners?” he guffawed in the faces of the knights, brazen and arrogant. 

Arthur paled. The rest of his knights gave each other uneasy looks. 

“He’s long dead, you can be sure” the Saxon leader sneered. “Roughed ‘im up and threw ‘im in a pit, summat about the Valley of the Fallen Kings. No one would survive like that for long.” With those words, Kilingur slyly brought out a knife from a loop in the back of his belt. 

Arthur caught the movement, and suddenly his hand was at the pommel of his sword.

Kilingur only grinned and whisked out his weapon, and his warriors followed suit. The air was filled with the sound of primal battle cries on the Saxon side. 

Arthur glowered, swallowing the bile that threatened to make its appearance in the back of his throat. They would not have killed Merlin. _Surely_ they hadn’t…

The Camelot knights only saw Arthur’s hand go to his sword, and immediately they drew weapons of their own, adding to the sounds of ringing metal as swords and knives were unsheathed and readied.

“If it’s war you seek, then so be it” Arthur snarled, poised and ready to ride into one bloody battle. 

But something stopped them all in their tracks, even the Saxons.

“ _STOP!”_

 

Arthur felt like his heart had begun to beat again after a full minute of standing still. He knew that voice. Thank the _gods._

Everyone looked up.

With the side of his head and one sharp cheekbone stained dark from dried blood, clothing torn and a wooden staff in his hand, Merlin looked like hell. 

Or rather, it looked like he had faced the gaping jaws of hell and told it to go and bugger right off.

It appeared that, whilst the before-battle dispute had been taking place, Merlin had made his way down the majority of the rocky cliff face, using the twisted staff to his advantage to scale it like he’d been doing it his entire life. 

As all watched, he slid the rest of the way down, uncharacteristically graceful and warrior-esque while gripping the staff for leverage. It was really quite a spectacle.

“Stop this!” he growled again, and the tone of his voice sent a shiver through the air. The Saxons stilled.They, Arthur, and the rest of the knights could only gape. 

Arthur stared at the injuries covering Merlin’s face, his knees, neck, the patches on his arms and legs where the material of his clothing had been torn up, and Arthur knew that there were more than what was visible on the surface. 

As Merlin found his footing on a solid jut of rock about a meter above the rest of the men, he steadied himself with the staff and surveyed them all with a glare.

“Guess you thought I should’ve been pushing up daisies, eh?” he asked, cheeky as ever. Kilingur looked red in the face, livid. The knights looked relieved. Gwaine was actually grinning back. 

“But there’s not really much place for daisies in a rock quarry, is there?” Merlin’s eyes contained the faintest glimmer of mischief. The words were aimed at the side where Kilingur and his men stood, or sat on their horses. Their weapons were still drawn, but they were waiting for an official order from their leader.

“It’s the boy from earlier” one of the Saxons muttered, his weapon forgotten in his hand. 

“The one we found in the Valley. Yes, I can see that.” Kilingur was trying to sound annoyed, possibly a bit bemused, but Arthur caught the confusion in his eyes. The fear.

Whatever they had done to Merlin, Arthur doubted anyone should have survived it. Apparently, the Saxons thought so too, because they looked very cautious of their opposition all of a sudden. 

“That’s me” Merlin growled, grinning a terrible, vicious grin. “Miss me?”

“You!” Kilingur spat, pointing a great big finger at the bruised and battered man standing with one arm braced against the cliffside. “ _You_ were supposed to be dead. How did you survive?” He wasn’t even trying to cover up his bewilderment. For all intents and purposes, the servant boy should have been dead in a ditch.

“Well, I’ve heard tell it’s pretty hard to get rid of me” Merlin laughed, and Arthur couldn’t help but break into a grin of his own at the impish look on Merlin’s face. 

“Either that, or I’m back from the dead.”


End file.
